Axial myopia means that your eyeball has grown longer. Reversing axial myopia requires the eyeball to resume its natural shape. But just how much change are we talking about?
Generally I like to keep the program light on the biology end of things. A lot of students in the past have expressed confusion when I talk about the biology. As the Web program is designed to provide relevant information to a wide range of students, I found it to be best to keep things focused on rehab work (rather than vision theory which you can find lots more of in the blog).
But once in a while it makes sense to touch on some underlying concepts, just as a point of motivation, and to further relevant understanding of your eyes. For that, let’s take a quick look at axial myopia.
One thing we do not talk about much, is just how much your eyeball has grown longer, to reduce ciliary strain exposure from excessive close-up focus and in response to minus lens wear. This likely only applies to you if you have ever gone above -1.5D or -1.75D in actual (not overprescribed) prescription lenses. If you are below -2D but originally started higher, you probably still have some axial myopia. If you never crossed that boundary, you may only have ciliary myopia, which does not express in any real physiology change.
For those of you of median or higher myopia, consider how much change you need to reverse to see clearly, at 20/20:
-3D of refractive correction equals 1 millimeter of axial change.
Think about this, for a moment. One millimeter. Let it sink in. You are looking to make a one millimeter change (if you are a -3.00 case).
When students express surprise at their gains, their improvements, I realize that I don’t always do the best job at explaining the relatively small change we are looking for. Of course we realize that your eye grew longer in response to strain – a stimulus (even though a negative one). The same exact biology that allowed the properly functioning eye to accommodate for your lifestyle, is the one we tap into for rehabilitation.
By now you know exceedingly well about strain reduction, and positive stimulus. Having experienced several centimeter improvements, you already know that positive stimulus works exactly the same a the prior negative stimulus did – negative stimulus made you myopic, positive stimulus (and reducing the minus lens impact) is making you less myopic. It is, all told, a very simple proposition.
Now I want you to visualize the change you are looking for:
One third of a millimeter will reduce your prescription nearly a full diopter.
You have already made good progress, just following the sessions up to here. You already made positive change happen. As you are working on the next centimeter reduction, keep clear perspective of just how very, very small the net change is that you need to accomplish. We are not moving mountains. We are not trying to grow wings. We are just looking for a fraction of a millimeter BACK to where your eye started out as – it is not even anything new to your body. It’s merely allowing reduced strain and positive stimulus to signal your vision system that change is required. Change that you already experienced: In the negative sense, the eye growing longer, and in the positive sense, that you can already see better today than when you first started.
Use this session for times that you may not feel entirely inspired. A third of a millimeter, your eyesight improving significantly.
Next up, incremental focus pulling. See you there!
Cheers,
-Jake
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